environmental historian scott einberger talks about his book, "with distance in his eyes: the environmental life and legacy of stewart udall." mr. einberger details the late secretary's role in expanding federal lands, parks, monuments and recreation areas, as well as helping write environmental protection and natural resource conservation acts. the u.s. capitol historical society hosted this 50-minute event. >> on behalf of the u.s. capitol historical society, my name is chuck digiacomantonio, i am the chief historian of the society. a little background, when scott einberger first contacted our office about his willingness to do one of these lunch time lectures, i immediately thought of the udalls because it's something like massachusetts has the kennedys and texas has the bushes and the southwest has the udalls. for some reason i wasn't

thinking of stewart udall as secretary of the interior. in preparation for the talk today i read a little bit more about stewart udall and i was surprised to learn he taught environmental humanism at yale. i love that expression. john muir would be proud, i think. i recently read udall's book, "the forgotten founders," which is a tribute of praise for his pioneer forebears that reminds us that the west was not all buffalo soldiers and trappers and pony express riders. it was families. it is really fine history. udall's work as an advocate and historian reminded me how closely the two are entwined not only as subject but as ethos. environmentalism and history,

really trying to do the same thing. there is certainly the history of environmentalism -- this is just me, by the way. this isn't scott. i don't want to put words in scott's mouth. i'm only an environmentalist because i hang around so much with ken boling, my friend and mentor, and other good friends. it occurs to me that environmentalism and history share the same ethos. there's the history of environmentalism but the same ethic that informs environmentalism, awareness of the importance of context, cause and effect and concern for the human species, these also inform the best practices of history so that one might honestly speak not only of the history of environmentalism but an environmentalism of history. so on to the speaker. scott, scott einberger was an independent environmental historian. he wrote the history of rock creek park, wilderness in washington, d.c., which i understand is soon coming out in a new edition but today's talk

is based on the current book, "with distance in his eyes: the environmental life and legacy of stewart udall". scott kindly brought copies of his own for sale in the back that he'll sign for purchasers and i hope we support him that way and join me in welcoming him right now, scott. [applause] scott: thank you very much, chuck. it's great to be here. thank you, also, to charlotte and lauren for coordinating the event. chuck noted that the udalls are a big name in the west. it's true. i was fortunate enough to do a book tour the first two weeks of september and for my talk in the rural arizona very small home town of stewart and morris udall, you know, mormons are known for big families, i had about 12 folks for my talk.

four of them had the last name of udall. six of them had the middle name of udall. but it was actually really neat. the extended family treated me very warmly which was totally unexpected on the tour. i actually stayed with stewart udall's 94-year-old surviving sister and her daughter in las cruces. it was a wonderful experience. thank you to the u.s. capitol historical society for having me here today. to get started, of all things, i want to read a poem. once by the pacific. at sunrise near a city by a beach i heard the wash of surf, the call of birds, the chiming of church bells, fog horn's far off single song, a dog's cry and a boy's. tender noise like this has soothed the waking mind since homer but sullen morning came and engines ripped the urban air, nulling all the subtle sounds.

must all the soft chords go torn by a savage solarity to caress us only at dawn and dusk or must we curse the sonic time, embrace our ears against the din. that was written in 1968 by stewart udall. it's not every day you get an interior secretary that's a poet, much less a poet writing about noise pollution on the pacific coast at a work trip in san diego but i think that poem is a good segue into the book and uniqueness of stewart udall. you did this -- uniqueness indeed. for starters, he was a poet, avid hiker, an intellectual and a very gifted writer. as chuck pointed out, he wrote books, whether environmental or history, they were and are very connected fields but he wrote several books. he was also, get this, progressive mormon from rural arizona.

and the goal of the book, really the thesis, is that here in the united states we had a rich history of conservation and environmentalism. a lot of us probably know the names such as john muir, gifford pinchot, leopold, carson -- a few others that are the titans of the movement. my thesis is that stewart udall should be added to the list. for the record, he was not perfect by any means. i have a chapter on his controversies. and furthermore, he needed many people below him at his level and above him -- the president, staffers, and interested public in the environment, he needed many others to succeed. but he did succeed and i really think he was the best interior secretary the nation has ever had in terms of conservation,

environmental protection and outdoor recreation opportunity creation, if you will. i'd like to share, since we're with the capitol historical society, i'd like to share a few notes on his years prior as a congressman and then i'll get into his interior secretary years, spotlight three specific accomplishments he had under kennedy and johnson, and then i'll spotlight some reasons for his success and finally, if there are any questions at the end, by all means, ask away. , interior secretary, the position is unique. it's over the national park service, the bureau of land management, the u.s. fish and wildlife service. in the 1960's, this was prior to the department of energy being created, interior secretaries were really the de facto energy secretary prior to the mid and

early 1970's so they managed all things oil, coal and so on. the interior department also oversees the bureau of indian affairs. so it's a diverse entity. in fact, the department's been called the department of everything else. stewart himself was referred to as the secretaries of things in general. his background being born and raised in st. johns, arizona, kind of a farming, conservation background, helped him in his interior secretary years. so did his congressional years. he was elected to congress. he was in congress representing one of the just two districts in arizona. today there's nine but he represented the entire state outside of phoenix and maricopa county, in the mid and late 1950's.

from 1955 to 1961. 80% of arizona, if you include indian lands, 80% is federally owned. so reservations, national forests but also wildlife refugees, national park units, and so on. the fact that he came from a background in a state with so much public lands and reservations, also that he was put on the house interior committee and all of its subcommittees, helped build his resume, and also gave him great experience to become an exceptional interior secretary. he gained a spot in the kennedy camelot, kennedy white house. certainly his work and interest in public lands and being a westerner helped in those endeavors, with the exception of

really only a few cases, secretaries of the interior have always been westerners. that's where the majority of the public lands the department's holdings are held and he was young and progressive and pro-kennedy, that certainly helped. in the presidential election, arizona swung actually for nixon but in the primary he had gotten arizona to swing for kennedy instead of johnson so kennedy appreciated that. so he became interior secretary and was one of just three interior secretaries in history to lead it for eight years or more. the entire administrations of kennedy, of course, that was cut short, and then the five years or so of the lyndon baines johnson administration. some successes as interior secretary -- i'll mention just three of many. but first and this is close to my heart because my background's primarily with the national park

service. i worked four years at rock creek park, actually, and several parks out west. but one success he had is that he helped expand the national parks system at an unprecedented rate in the 1960's. i counted 64 new units from 1961 to early 1969 that were established and udall was arguably more involved until expanding the national parks system than any other cabinet member in history. the big four, about the capitol land, capital p national parks established in the decade were guadelupe mountains in west texas, one of my favorite sites, canyon lands in southern utah, just above the more controversial monument created under obama. redwood national park and north cascades national park in washington state just east of bellingham.

in this area, national capital area and continuing to maryland shore, the parks that were established during the decade, national park units, that is, one was piscataway park just south of d.c., really helped protect the view from mount vernon looking across the river there, it looks very forested. piscataway park is a large reason for that. pennsylvania avenue national historic site. wolf trap historic site for the performing arts, frederick douglass historic city and the asteak island national sea shore, the more local units he helped establish. he had several reasons why he was so successful in establishing so many new national parks. one of them is that when he was going to these parks to see if they were worthy of federal protection and if they should

become recreation areas for the public, he brought along -- he almost always brought along an armada of journalists and local, state, federal politicians representing the area. since these parks were often superlative, gorgeous natural areas, it generally received positive press in the articles that were then written about it. that really helped. he also -- stewart udall also partnered with ladybird johnson in several endeavors and they visited pre-existing national parks to simply drum up the interest in conservation. during one trip to big ben national park on the rio grande in texas, there are photos of stewart rowing the paddle down the rapids of the rio grande but the media got a hold of photos -- the media took photos of

ladybird struggling in the raft with an ore and udall was enjoying the scenery in the back, relaxing. when president johnson got wind of this, he said, udall and i share a deep love for conservation, sometimes he even outdoes me by conserving his own energy and letting ladybird row. so unprecedented expansion to the national parks system in the 1960's. secondly, close to home for all of us, at home, he partnered with ladybird in beautifying or greening the district of columbia. ladybird gets a lot of credit and there's been a lot of documentation of her work in the conservation movement, especially beautification projects in cities and particularly highways. what's less known and she acknowledges actually that udall was the person in her book. but what's less known is the

fact that stewart udall was actually the one that brought her on to the pathway of conservation and to her work projects in the first place. she referred to stewart udall as the conservation cheerleader. they partnered together. udall did not have a bad relationship with kennedy -- with john and jackie kennedy by any means but he had a much more natural and better relationship, more intimate relationship with the johnsons. it helped that they were from a more rural west background as he was. conservation came more natural to them. he partnered with ladybird. soon after johnson took office he partnered with the first lady. they created a working group that included lots of big names -- lawrence rockefeller -- i'm blanking on the other one but there were several big names there.

and they got moneys and they helped plant thousands upon thousands of trees and daffodils and other flowering plants all through d.c., primarily in the national capitol area but it also included public housing projects, playgrounds in some of those areas, as well. in march, if you go along the rock creek and potomac parkway, the daffodils that pop up, the yellow daffodils, those are the original plants from 55 years ago of the udall and ladybird plantings. 55 years is a long time for small flowers and trees in an urban setting. they had a lot of challenges. a lot of the trees and plants are no longer there but those are some that are.

columbia island in the potomac but going down on the way to national airport along the george washington memorial parkway, ladybird took a specific interest in that area. there's a marina there these days and they actually planted between 1965 and 1968, they planted over one million daffodils. that makes it, at that time it would have been -- there would have been more daffodils there than the classic fields in northern europe but they also planted 3,000 dogwood trees and actually in november of 1968, just before the administration left and the nixon administration came in, in a small ceremony, udall brought ladybird and the national parks service director and a few other folks out there to the columbia island and he officially renamed it and rededicated it, ladybird johnson park. there is a small plaque there. also a few years later when

president johnson passed away, they created his small but formal naturalistic memorial right there in the middle of the park, as well. so he partnered with ladybird in beautifying and greening d.c. another thing he did -- another success he had was in, believe it or not, desegregating the washington redskins. the capital, not the capitol building, the national capital as a city is unique in that most of the public parklands and open spaces are managed not by the district government but by the national parks service and because of this, the redskins old stadium, r.f.k. stadium, was technically on national park service, department of interior administered lands.

when udall came in as interior secretary, he learned that due to some laws that were -- due to some laws that were passed, he had control over the washington redskins stadium lease, stadium contract, and so he essentially gave george marshall, the owner of the redskins, a season to integrate or he said they would have to find a new stadium elsewhere. so i want to read a little bit of a "washington post" article of the time talking about the coach of the year, actually, for 1961. "the time has come only after a pair of nfl games to close the books on selection of the football coach of the year. the winner is a politician named stewart l. udall, employed full-time as interior secretary in the kennedy cabinet. as a coach, udall is unique.

he's not appeared at any practice sessions of his team, the washington redskins. it goes on, it could only happen in washington in a politician merely by a commitment to civil rights could turn a losing football team into a winner. continued, marshall's redskins were notable in pro football as a squad that had no negro players. that's a quote from the time. redskins games were widely televised in dixie and it may have been that chief redskin marshall would prefer an all white team. there was a hassle when udall told marshall to integrate or not and udall said he would cancel the redskin stadium contract if the color bar was maintained. he did integrate. first, one player, and then

several more. marshall did not acknowledge it was the interior department and stewart udall that forced him to integrate but it was. one of my colleagues, a similar minded historian, thomas g. smith, wrote a book on the subject recently. udall was invited to the first game and perhaps symbolically the redskins, one african american player, was actually brought into the pro bowl that year. so just three successes of many i've highlighted. in the book, i have a chapter on all of the main topics he led and managed as interior secretary. so one on transitioning the bureau of land management to a more multiple use agency set up in kind of the u.s. forest service fashion. two chapters on national parks system expansion. one on his work with the fish and wildlife service. i said he expanded the national park units at an unprecedented

rate. dozens of national wildlife efforts were established and he wrote the udall bill, 1966 endangered species preservations act. i have a chapter on water, not just dam building, reclamation, but the flipside of that, wild rivers. actually, just yesterday, 50 days ago, october 2, 1968, was when johnson signed both the national wild and scenic river system act and national trail system act and in that signing ceremony he referred to the piece of legislation as both monuments to udall. and it is -- so i have chapters on all the main topics. it is a cradle-to-grave biography so i have a chapter on him growing up in st. johns, arizona, his mormon missionary work and flying over the skies of europe in world war ii and

during his later years he became more of a historian of the u.s. west. his last book was written in 2002 and he just passed away a few years ago in 2010 in santa fe. so i've stated some successes but some reasons for his success. in the book, i list eight. i'm sure there are more, actually. but i analyze eight reasons that i believe he succeeded and i'd like to spotlight three of them here. the first one cannot be overstated in today's partisan politics climate. the first reason he succeeded is because there was widespread interest and bipartisanship regarding the environment in the 1960's and 1970's.

there was, of course, some back-and-forth and some partisanship but it was by and large unprecedented bipartisanship during that era. widespread interest in conservation. to give one example of many, david brower, long-time executive director of the sierra club, was a regular visitor to stewart udall's secretarial office. the two generally had a very good relationship except for when udall came out in favor, at the beginning, anyway, of a couple of dams within the grand canyon. that was a sticky point in their relationship but even so, brower's autobiography, he referred to udall as the most environmentally conscious interior secretary in history. bipartisanship, in the 1960's, both houses of congress were controlled by the democrats and they were democrat presidents, as well.

with that said, much of the legislation that came out of the 1960's and 1970's would not have passed were it not for many republicans supporting it. just to name three of many, thomas kuchel, a california senator, was the minority whip in the 1960's and he was instrumental in getting the vast majority of republicans to get behind the wilderness act of 1964. john sailor who had a congressional district around southwestern pennsylvania outside of pittsburgh was a big-time supporter of conservation and then with my background in the park service and with my interest in the interior department, one person i find fascinating is rogers morton, a kentuckian but did 10 years as a congressman on the

eastern shore of maryland and served at nixon's second interior secretary into the ford administration. he was more conservative, actually. he was a republican national committee chairman, but he had a very big green streak. he really balanced as much as possible, he really balanced the needs of environmental protection and resource use. what i find fascinating is, regardless of whether it was a democrat or republican administration, really in the 1960's and 1970's continuing really into 1981, regardless of political party environmentalism was largely bipartisan and especially so within the u.s. department of the interior, morton and udall were actually really good friends. udall went to morton's swearing-in ceremony. you can argue that morton upheld and expanded on all of udall's successes within the department.

a second reason for udall's success in the 1960's was through his means for paying for the success, the land and water conservation fund. if you haven't heard of this, i joke that it is the most important piece of conservation legislation that you've never heard of. this was referred to as a udall pet project, but over the years, it's funded outdoor recreation and open space acquisition projects in every single county of every single state and territory in the nation. how it worked was, it was started in 1964, 1965 and it gained its money through motor boat fuel tax and public land user fees, if you go into a national park, you have to pay to get into some of them.

in 1968, the act was amended and this was where it really got its money. it was given funds through offshore oil leasing revenue. and the land and water conservation fund has been one of the quieter but more successful pieces of conservation legislation in history. in the 1960's, birmingham, alabama was a hot bed of civil rights issues. there were several lynchings down there. outdoor recreation matters, this civil rights town received several swimming pools courtesy of the land and water conservation fund. anchorage, the largest city in the largest state received several playgrounds. barry goldwater, mr. conservative as he was known in the 1960's and 1970's, he took

sometime, he left his senate seat to run for president in the 1964. that failed. however, he helped -- he personally helped fund the much to create to protect an open space mountaintop in the phoenix area, the conservation fund helped provide the other half of that money to preserve that spot. the land and water conservation fund. many congressmen wouldn't have approved of new national parks, new wildlife refuges if they would have increased the new federal budget, but this fund helped pay for a lot of these new park sites. a third reason for his success and this is where i'll finish up here is through, is by way of his pen and his voice. his writing and his speaking, ever since i discovered his

writings 10 years ago when i was living in el paso, i've just been really inspired by everything he writes, he wrote. i'm serious when i say that his writings -- in a large sense, his writings expressed my mind even better than i can express them. from the moment i picked up "the quiet crisis" in 1963, a few months before president kennedy was assassinated and forwarded by president kennedy, onward to his last book, i was hooked. he really had a gift for writing. "the quiet crisis" in particular was one of the first environmental histories of the country or what he refused to as the land people story of the continent. his legacy lives on in a number

of ways. u.s. senator tom udall is stewart's son. he represents new mexico. morris udall was stewart's brother. they were close. in fact, after stewart left for kennedy administration, morris took his congressional seat and held on to it for 15 more items. he served from 1961 to 1991. morris himself was distinguished himself with environmental and conservation legislation. it's a big family, the udall and a lot of them are doing some very good things. thank you so much, and by all means if you have any questions. [applause] >> thank you. yes. >> it wasn't until the nixon administration that we had the

environmental protection agency. why didn't that happen during udall's term or was it just not ready? was it just not the time for it? scott: it was a buildup to it, a crescendo, the 1960's, as a shakespearean play, i don't want to say the rising of the primary, a lot of big pieces of legislation that came out of the environmental movement. a lot of it did come out in the first term of the nixon administration. one big thing that happened was, and stewart got lucky in this regard, it didn't fall on his watch, but just a few days after the johnson administration left, there was a huge oil spill just off the coast of santa barbara in california. there were other smaller ones as well. the santa barbara oil spill helped further galvanize support

in favor of environmental protection, not even a year later, there was earth day and not even a year after that, there was nepa and the e.p.a. so that oil spill helped, but it was a crescendo, there was a lot of buildup to e.p.a. and to the nixon administration's environmental achievements, further more, that was, a lot of those initiatives were very much congressional initiatives as well. good question. >> just looking for your index speaking. and i found bureau of indian affairs. you say it falls under -- it

fell under his department, but it really, indian relations hit crisis mode in the late 1960's, early 1970's in particular. after his watch, was he consulted about the development of native american relations with the federal government after he left office and what were his positions on that? scott: i don't believe he was consulted. in the private sector especially beginning in the late 1970's and 1980's and 1990's, he represented over 300 navaho plaintiffs, these folks had worked in unsafe conditions mining uranium in the 1940's and 1950's and not warned beforehand of the dangers of doing so. and so he tried to bring justice to bring compensation to them, if you will. a lot of those efforts failed

but there was the, i'm blanking on the name, but there was a uranium miner compensation act that helped a little bit that was passed in the 1990's. governmentwise in the 1970's, he was outside of government. he wasn't involved with the indian rights activism so much. >> on the way out of town, we see the floral library by the tidal basin. was that udall and lady bird johnson creating that? scott: i'm not sure. it very well might have been, i'm not sure on that. the tidal basin and really all of the national mall was a focal point for plantings, but i'm not sure about that specific garden.

the national sculpture garden, he worked closely with renowned landscape architect or architect in general nathaniel owings. and out of their plans for downtown d.c. and the mall came, among other things, the national sculpture garden. >> there were a lot of successes he had, but there were, i know there were a number of things he wishes he would have done or been able to achieve more, can you elaborate on those? scott: sure. it's actually sad in a way because johnson, president and first lady actually, but l.b.j. and udall had a great relationship, that is until the final days and after their last drama together, i don't think johnson and udall ever spoke to each other again. udall and lady bird johnson

spoke a little bit, but the main failure and i think it can be seen as a failure of udall, he did as much as he could, it was the failure of johnson's. the main failure was in not setting aside an unprecedented amount of new national parks at the end of the administration. outgoing presidents during their lame duck sessions, not every president, but a lot of them have a tradition of establishing new national monuments and new national wildlife refugees when they can kind of do what their conscious says after they're done with their second term, when they're finishing their second term or when they've been voted out of office, they can do what they want to a large degree. and so people, even like hoover,

especially bill clinton created some fantastic national monuments during their final days. udall worked with national park service and other high-up officials from other organizations and other agencies in the department and came up with a johnson grand finale on conservation. it would have created dates of the arctic national monument, vastly expanded denali by creating a denali national monument around the park and it would have created several other national monuments as well. udall proposed it to johnson. johnson said this is ok, but go to the key congressmen and senators and make sure they will support this. they kind of both argued the same thing to each other over and over again. udall didn't believe there was enough time to get congressional

support. he also knew that there were, most of the people he had been working with in congress would support it. he also knew that wayne aspinwall, really a conservative democrat from colorado, a longtime chairman of the interior committee, he knew that aspinwall would not support it and didn't want to go to aspinwall. final months came to final weeks came to final days. during the final weekend of the administration, stewart actually -- i don't know if he -- i don't know if he gave a press release proclaiming the new parks, i don't know if he gave it to press and hold on until johnson approves or gave to the press to promote in the papers and force johnson's hand, but it didn't do either. it backfired when johnson got word of the press release that had been released, he was livid and he called udall and udall

said -- johnson said hell of a way to run a department and then hung up the phone and that was literally the last they ever talked to each other. in that conversation, udall actually offered his resignation in protest, but, of course, it was just two days left of the administration. the good news with all this is eight, nine, 10 years later in the carter administration, a lot, really, almost all of these parks came into existence under the buildup, in the buildup to anoca, the alaska national interest lands conservation act. udall thought the opportunity to create those parks and monuments had been lost. that was one of the main -- that was one of the main failures, if you will. >> thank you, i know in his

final collection of works, udall took a very introspective approach. a lot of them were aimed at his children passing on his accumulated wisdom. from your reading of those, how do you think his overall assessment of his work and the american experience with conservation in general changed, was it sort of dimmed by the retreat from real federal involvement in conservation environmentalism that started to happen later in his life or was it undimmed and he saw a bright future ahead? scott: i think a little bit of both. in his final couple of decades and retirement in santa fe, he referred to himself as a troubled optimism. he understood that he was interior secretary, it was kind of the golden time of conservation bipartisanship and so he saw that rise and then decline as well. so that must have been -- that must have been hard to reflect on.

he also tried to push that fact and bring more environmental bipartisanship back to life. his final writing projects were more intimate, more directed for, yeah, for his grand children. it was a series of articles that were published as well, but a series of articles of how the country needed to really act boldly to mitigate the worst of global warming climate change. in the late 1990's, i found it at one point in my research and but couldn't find it again. i have spent hours looking for this photo. but in colorado, i think it was colorado state university, there was literally a presentation where both jim watt, james watt

and stewart udall, kind of the two total opposite interior secretaries met and talked at a presentation and there is an interesting photo of shaking his hand. you could see in udall's eyes, oh, my gosh. i think he had progressive views in the 1960's, views kind of not ahead of his time, but really seeing the long view of things and he really did as well 50 years later, the day before he died. the title of his book, "distance in his eyes" that's what references to, he had a long view, looking to do things what's best for the nation, not now, but for 10 years from now, 100 years from now and actually i had the -- even before i wrote

a sentence of the book, i had the title picked out years, years prior just because reading all of the information, that was kind of the overlying, underlying theme i think with underlying theme i think with all his work. good question. yes. >> so you mentioned with the daffodils here in the d.c. area and i'm old enough i think to remember that lady bird had a passion for wildflowers and did the secretary have any kind of influence or was that separate from their relationship? scott: it was both. so he, and again, lady bird gives him credit for this, but he initiated, he funneled ladybird's interesting in conservation in the first place

which blossomed into wildflower plantings and all of these things. how that worked, i think it was the winter of 1964. all of the cabinet was invited back to the texas white house, johnson's ranch, and through a series of kind of informal cabinet meetings which ladybird sat in on, stewart found her very knowledgeable on conservation endeavors. after they got back to the capitol, he arranged a meeting between her and him and through that meeting came about the, i think it was the committee for a more beautiful capitol and then all kinds of other things as well. >> you mentioned his interest in outdoor recreation. i know the bureau of outdoor recreation was established in that period. was he involved in that? scott: yes, very much so. i actually write quite a bit about it.

it's a little bit of touchy subject in park service history. for the longer part of park service history, for the biggest extent of it, outdoor recreation planning has been done by with the park service itself. in the 1960's to a lesser extent the 1970's, i think one reason that there was so much success at new package situations at all levels, national and local and state as well was because the bureau of outdoor recreation was a more, more -- what's that? no, opposite of aggressive. the park service and forest service have a long history of kind of duking it out together. a lot of the parks were created from national forests.

so department of agriculture forest service, a lot of them didn't like the national park service planning out recreation endeavors. the fact that work was pulled into a separate agency and the fact that udall brought in the department of agriculture employee to head it helped strengthen that relationship between ag and interior and forest service and park service tremendously. the bureau of outdoor recreation itself came about through, here is one for an acronym. orrrc, the outdoor recreation resources review commission which was a bipartisan commission of folks headed by lawrence and rockefeller and

john sailor from pennsylvania was in that group as well. in the late 1950's, early 1960's, they interviewed thousands of outdoor entities, industries, general public and found out, surveyed them on what the need for the country in terms of outdoor recreation was then, what it would be like in 20 years and what it would be like in say 50 years. their report was released in 1962, i believe, still really at the begin of udall's tenure. he very much jumped onboard with that, with their report. it was not like reports that get buried and nobody acts upon. he brought it up to his level and helped create the bureau of outdoor recreation and further more, many of the orrrcmendations that the

had in place in that report, he really helped push through. >> following up on that question. there is a lot of talk about reorganization of the department of interior with the current secretary. did secretary udall pursue or have more interest in the comprehensive organization such as the forest service or setting off other agencies? scott: many other interior secretaries. hickey has been the most vocal one, many interior secretaries i think have wanted and have been in different ways, capacities pushed for a more comprehensive department, department of natural resources, department of conservation, even in the nixon administration, there was a

proposal for the department of national resources in energy. udall did see that that would be fitting to bring all kind of public lands and conservation organizations under one umbrella. however, i think he also saw that that was probably unlikely and very controversial considering the ways of bureaucracy. so he didn't push that hugely. in fact, on the contrary, he worked very well with the secretary of agriculture, orville freeman. there was a so-called treaty on the potomac in the 1960's where the two got together and flushed out a series of things that both cabinets, both departments were interested in. it wasn't perfect, but they worked generally pretty well together.

so i think he kept those ideas about a larger department mostly to himself, kind of for the greater good, arguably. in the early 1970's, there was a lot of new agencies were created, noaa and e.p.a. and so that concept today, there are so many departments -- there are so many organizations, agencies within the department already, it would be a very hard sell today. good questions. >> well, thank you, again, so much. scott: thank you. thank you. [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2018] our tv schedule, preview upcoming programs and

watch college lectures, films and more. american history tv as c-span.org/history. c-span, or history unfolds daily. in 1979, c-span was created as a public service by america's cable television company. we continue to bring you unfiltered coverage of the white house, congress, the supreme court and public policy events in washington, d.c. and around the country. c-span is brought to you by your cable or satellite provider. you can watch archival films on public affairs each week on our series, real america. saturday at 10:00 p.m. and sunday at 4:00 p.m. eastern on american history tv. here's a quick look at one of our recent programs. they are not our kind.

they are a different kind of people entirely. >> is that bad? >> my hair is long and yours, should i cut it off? >> what are they? >> you heard your father. laura has learned to do her own thinking. she has her own ideas. she does not need to step all over people in order to build herself up. harold gregory does. like everyone, he wants to get ahead. people look up to him. he always wanted praise. even as a child. instead, he got disciplined. his job is standing still. others always seem -- 15 years at the same desk.

the bookkeeper for a steel company. fairly competent. no -- a fewaces but more raises no promotions. favoritism? dirty politics? wiles of a moving in and moving out? gregory had his own answer. because they are so turkey. -- tricky. how come? fine -- a finally to treat an american. if at first you don't succeed, blame somebody else. the foreigners. they are stupid and dirty. but they are smart and tricky. they are lazy they are too ambitious. there anything he wants them to be. a handy target for his own

adequacy. >> you can watch archival films on public affairs in their entirety on our weekly series "real america. ." guest: here -- here on american history tv. >> next on lectures in history, abram van engen of washington university in st. louis teaches a class of how the pilgrims became part of the united states founding story in 19th century textbooks. he describes why they emphasized the pilgrims plymouth colony over earlier settlements such as jamestown in virginia. his class is about 70 minutes. >> the goal today is to think about how the pilgrims and the puritans who we have been talking about all course long became such a national part of our heritage, such a huge part of our history, what happened,